Plant Power Yoga And Ayurveda: A Holistic Recipe For Heart Wellness

Introduction and Victoria Moranu2019s background 0:00

Hello, everybody. Welcome. This is going to be a really, really great interview because it's going to be full of information. And it's a dear friend. And some of you are immediately saying, oh my God, it's Victoria moran, because she had been in this world of health and fitness and mind body and certainly plant based nutrition. If I told you what decade she started down this path, you guys would say, Doctor Tyson is, a lying because it's been a lot of decades. She's phenomenally, wonderful woman who, just glows youthfulness.

And we all know that as time goes by, we get older. But she is using a really good program, to keep young and, Hello. And thank you for being here, Victoria. Oh, thanks so much for having me. It's always wonderful to be in a program that's mostly doctors and a layperson or two. Yeah. So. Right. And we all need to learn the real stuff. That's how we bring it. And I give because we have, stodgy education. And it's not as broad as it should be. But you've done a good job and many people recognize that you have led something very visible online called the Main Street Vegan Academy.

You were kind enough to have me travel to, Harlem and participate in one of, several. I think I did a few online, too. But you've been teaching, you know, nutrition through your book, Main Street Vegan. Probably about 12 years ago. My memory serves. But your memory is perfect. Okay. And this actual program you have, everybody check that out. Main Street Vegan academy, it's a wonderful program, but I'm excited that you have some new information to share with the world and share with the viewers of this summit.

But before I get there, I have to travel down memory lane a little bit because what did you and I shared back in 2016 to embarrass you a little bit? Oh, we were PETA's Sexiest Vegans over 50. Yeah, we're. Still over 50. And we're still over there. Oh we did, we both got picked you as the reigning queen for a year and I as the reigning. I'll call myself a prince because I think you stole the show. But, yeah, we actually went to Los Angeles together and visited Peta headquarters. And I still remember taking pictures with that yellow, chick.

I think I'm a symbol. I think I called it right, but, that was a fun deal. And I don't think you get a second shot at getting that award. So we have to, savor the fact. So I know they only let you be sexy once. Yeah, exactly. At least when it came to the male award, we clearly had people that, needed a visual update, but it was all good. So thank you for sharing that little bit of memory. So you just published, tell me maybe your 12 book. Oh, a 14th, 14th book. Yeah. This one just came out before the summit, aged like a Yogi.

Heavenly path to a dazzling third act. And, first of all, the title. What is act one? And what is act two? Well, I think it depends kind of on the life, but if we generally look at the length of human lifespan that it seems that the experts are saying we ought to be living, you know, 90 is is not very long, you know, it's longer than the male and female life expectancy in America today. But it's about right. 90 or beyond. So if you look at it that way, act one is youth up to 30. Act two is, you know, through the, 50s.

And then you've got act three 6070s and 80s. Although I'm finding that a lot of people who are reading age like a Yogi

Plant-based journey and family life 4:00

are younger, you know, because you start thinking about aging around about 50. Now, that seems like it's kind of a cutoff time for a lot of people to like, oh my gosh, I'm not a kid anymore. So let me get serious about some of this stuff. Okay. Wonderful. So I guess you and I, and I would imagine a lot of the viewers are in our third act, and we gotta make it meaningful for sure. Yeah, I always quote a crazy movie. People may remember Zoolander, with Ben Stiller, who talked about the movie that he wanted to create a wonderful you googly, which was the way he said eulogy.

And so when I do things that are a little out of the different take a few risks. I always joke with my wife about that term because it's so, humorous to me, but, we'll call it the third act for this wonderful discussion. So let's get one thing out of the way. You've been plant based, which is a theme of this segment, because we're talking about reversing heart disease. You've been living the plant based life and teaching the plant based life for decades. That's a okay. Good. Yeah. And then we didn't have that term though that term is fairly recent.

Right. So, when I was 19, which was 1969, I went vegetarian. And, you know, some that was for me that was not eating anybody who had a face. So I did have eggs and dairy. And I'm my understanding now with more yoga is that eggs are not considered vegetarian in India. But I was eating those. But then eventually I was able to become purely vegan, purely plant based in 1983, because I had this little baby and I wanted to raise her this way. So I had to get my own act together and say, okay, you got to get serious about this.

You got to do it. And I'm very grateful that it's been over 40 years. I can't keep up with you. But, you know, in the ballpark. Now, you're you got a little street cred on me. In 1969, I was ten years old, and, I remember a whole lot of fish sticks in the toaster oven. And I'm glad for a lot of reasons that those are out of the picture right now. We also share, and I always gotta remind myself of this. I spent a year living in Kansas City, training and cardiology. And of course, you were born there, but you've been a long time resident.

And a great. What hospital in Kansas City. Saint Luke's right in downtown. And I actually worked at Saint Luke's in admitting for about a year. And this is relevant to what we're talking about, because I had worked for a magazine in Kansas City, and I quit because I was going to get married. And I thought before the wedding, I could lose a lot of weight and be happy with myself and go on and be married. But I didn't like my weight. So we put off the wedding and I needed a job. So I got a job in admitting at Saint Luke's.

And yeah, I have that whole history, you know, with the overeating, the overweight and really from healing from the inside out. And for me, that took an interchange with Overeaters Anonymous and switching finally to a 100% plant based diet. And those two things together just meant no more diets, no more struggles, no more worrying about this thing that had really plagued me for the first 30 some years of my life. So it's really hard for anybody that has met you to imagine you in that phase where you are an over eater and overweight because, you know, plant based vegan diets have worked so phenomenally well for you.

I'll just ask, I know you have two daughters. I think one been vegan from birth. Yes, yes. Year of us can actually claim in her health. You know, people wonder about that topic. Raising vegan children. That's yeah, a bit of a different summit. But, as she's it sounds like a little bit over 40 now, that's all worked out well for her. Oh is so well. Oh my goodness. My daughter is a stunt performer and aerialist. This is what she does for her living. So basically she is an athlete. And sometimes I say I better not bump into you a dare because I could break something because she's just so solid and so muscular.

And sometimes they will show somebody a picture of one of our terrific vegan athletes and they'll say, well, they built that muscle back when they were eating meat. My daughter has never had meat. She once got into the cheese at a Little League meeting when she was two years old. But other than that, she's never had an animal product in her life, and she's out there flying through the air and doing stage fighting and falling down stairs and rolling down hills and doing all these, these stunt things as a lifelong vegan.

Yoga practice and aging well 9:00

And then my other daughter is actually my stepdaughter, and she and my stepson love them dearly, are not vegetarian. They are very supportive of of what their dad and I do. But for themselves, it's just not something that that they have open to. And people worry so much. It's like, if only if only I could get my brother to do this. If only I could get my mom to do this. Well, you know, it's like the prophet is without honor in his own country. It's like you're influencing people. You really are.

And it might not be the ones that you're focused on, but even they are seeing what you're doing. Right. And I can tell you, having three incredible children, we have, two that are in the plant world and one who's a great kid, and we still allow them in the house, but, it's also, the father of grandchildren. And so you have to be very, very grateful. But, he has chosen a different dietary path at this point. But, you know, we'll love him and we'll see him on our side now and then. So when did yoga I think a long time ago.

But when did you come in your life and where any famous studios or teachers or, yogis in your life? Well, I've touched base with a few. My own story is that I've always been fascinated by the bigger picture. Now, I've always been interested in health because of being overweight, and also because my dad was a doctor. And I remember at nine years old, climbing up on his desk and pulling this big, dusty book off the top shelf, I it was called Elementary's humanness. It was so old. They were still naming the medical textbooks in Latin, and it was a nutrition book.

And I remember finding in there a chart. It was something like that, Andy chart that they used to have it at Whole Foods that I think Doctor Furman did, where it's foods by nutrient density, but they had this in my dad's old medical school textbook, and I remember looking at all these bizarre words that I didn't know were food, like, what's a color and what's a colored green? I mean, I never heard of such things, but they were at the top of the list of the most nutrient density. So that's always one big interest.

My other big interest has been the big picture, you know, why are we here? I got my degree in comparative religions because I want to know how people of all different cultures find meaning. So when I heard about yoga at 17, I read all three books in the Kansas City Public Library about yoga. And then yoga was weird. I mean, yoga was weirder than vegetarian, and people confuse yoga. Yogurt. Those are both foreign. You better avoid them. And so, of course, I just thought it was all the more fascinating.

And all three of those books had one thing in common. They said, if you're going to be serious about yoga, you have to stop eating animals. That's just basic, because we don't want to be harming and putting harming vibrations out into the world. Plus, you want to be nourishing your body with basically vegetables, fruits, grains, legumes, nuts and seeds. And then the ancient yogis, of course, allowed for dairy. But that was a whole different world. I mean, I think ethically and physiologically, we're talking 5000 years ago.

That's not last week. But interestingly enough, other than that dairy, the yogic recommendations for diet and the lifestyle medicine recommended for diet are very, very similar. So I discovered all this stuff when I was 17 and moved to London when I was 18. And that's where I found my first yoga teacher, Stella Surface, and I've actually dedicated the book to her because Stella is now 99, she teaches one yoga class a week, she has a salon in her flat every Sunday morning and invites fascinating women.

And that flat is three storeys up with no elevator. So this is this is the life, you know, this is the high plant, high vibration kind of life. Maybe we don't all have the genes for 99, but there are certainly those outliers out there to inspire the rest of us. Tell us a little and thanks for sharing that about your own personal yoga practice. How frequently along is there? Yeah, I'll. Well over these, what, 55 years or whatever. Like it's been it's varied and I've been more into the physical aspects of yoga at sometimes than others.

But what I loved about it from the beginning was that I'd never like to exercise because I was always overweight and I was sweating even without exercising. I didn't want to sweat anymore. And then here was this beautiful system that said, this can be very slow and gentle, and you get to bring your soul along. So nowadays there are all kinds of yoga, and some of them are very, athletic and they're not slow and gentle. There's still yoga. So what makes it yoga is the breath and the intention. But whatever style of yoga works for you, you still get to bring your soul along.

So to me, that's been really important and that's been my life long kind of movement practice. And I've gotten into other things here and there for fun. But I always come back to yoga. The other wonderful thing about yoga when you're older is that there are so many different kinds. There are so many different systems that you can customize what the kind of yoga that you choose to, what's going on with your body. And certain types are actually used for rehabilitation. There's a physiotherapist here in New York City, a doctor, Lauren Fishman, who does Iyengar yoga.

And if you go into his office, he's got the yoga mat. He'll get down on the floor, he'll stand on his head. He's in his mid 80s and it's a very, very healing practice. So for me, I teach two classes a week in my building, and I take two classes a week at the Integral Yoga Institute, which is my lineage. It's hatha yoga. And then, you know, night time. I always try to get that yoga mat out and do a few stretches. Reason being that it's in everybody's life. You come to this time where you get up one morning and it's like, what?

What's going on? Why do I feel so stiff? This is supposed to happen ten years from now. And I think one of the reasons that we tend to get like that over time is that we go to bed tense. So you think about it, maybe you have dinner and you're talking about some big issue that needs to be solved. And then you watch some CNN or some Fox or some whatever you watch and whatever it is is like, oh my God, it's awful out there. And then you go to bed with all of that stress. And so you wake up and you're still carrying it.

But if you can just do some little yogic moves at night, nothing big that's going to keep you awake. But just enough to let your sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous systems know we're going to turn off that sympathetic. We're going to get into the parasympathetic and we're really going to rest. The muscles are going to rest, the nerves are going to rest, your mind is going to rest. And then you wake up ready to go. Set the world on fire in every good way. Well, everything you just talked about applies to everybody who's listening, who doesn't want to be a hard patient or is a hard patient because the mind body connection,

Ayurveda, doshas, and balancing health 17:00

you know, always talked about by doctor Dean Ornish and, comes to mind probably the most is so crucial. And stress kills. We know that we've learned that in the medical world and we just know it in our own lives. So we need a tool that isn't vodka and isn't necessarily cannabis. And, breathwork and mindfulness and the yoga practice that you're describing sounds like a wonderful, option for, people that are listening that want to deal with their heart disease. Naturally. The name of this. Song, as you mentioned, Doctor Ornish and yoga has always been a part of his program.

And in fact, that style of yoga that I mentioned, Integral Yoga Doctor or Nice, had studied under the founder of Integral Yoga Swami Sachin Ananda. And there's this great story that, he wasn't getting funding for his study, and he was asking, you know, that he wanted to do this study with vegetarian diet and yoga and meditation. And according to the story, at least, Swami started. Ananda said, oh, you're using the wrong words. So you want to do a low fat diet as stress management. And and evidently that worked.

And when his book came out in 1990 explaining that study, it was called doctor Dean Ornish says program for Reversing Heart Disease. But that was the Harpercollins title and Doctor Ornish had wanted to call it Open in your heart, because that's true on the physical level and the psychological level. When you really do this in a holistic way. That's a great story. We do have. Doctor Ornish is one of the, esteemed participants of this summit, so. Well, then I shouldn't be telling his stories and tell you the story.

I tell his story. I tell his story all the time, and he'll text me. You almost got it right. Oh, I'm always learning to, those of us that would call ourselves kind of groupies of, one of the pioneers, doctor Dean Ornish. So your book talks about a topic that I don't think anybody else is going to bring up as an a diet healing. But that's the idea of medicine tradition, this ancient ancient Indian tradition, the science of life. And I got to admit, I'm really good seeing fruits, vegetables, legumes and whole grains.

I'm really bad about that in, the, three, types, philosophy and personality that might dictate how you eat and other aspects. So where did you learn about are you bad Veda and how does it come into your mainstream vegan Academy and your new book? Yeah. Okay. Thank you. So I learned about Iron Veda in the early 90s. And obviously that's a lot later than I learned about yoga. But that's an interesting story too, because when India was a British colony, they were very experienced colonizers. By the end, the British and they knew that you need to let people keep their religion so there won't be any uprisings so that they left alone.

But some of these other cultural aspects that make people have their identity, let's get rid of those. So they outlawed Ayurvedic medicine and it went underground for hundreds of years. Well, now it is back in full force. There are 6000 Ayurvedic hospitals in India. The World Health Organization recognizes Iron Veda as a viable healing art, and it has, internal medicine and gynecology and psychiatry and many, many of the same kinds of specialties, cardiology, certainly, that we have in Western medicine.

And yet it is very ancient, and it looks at things in a little bit of a different way because it tries to place humans in our lives on Earth within the natural rhythms and the natural cycles. And the idea is that when we are living in tune with what's going on in nature around us in terms of the season, of the year, the season of our lives, then we're going to be healthier and we're going to be able to resist disease. So what you talked about were the doses, the body types. And in our data there are three.

And everybody has some of each one of these energies. So vata is the energy of movement. It's air and ether and water. People tend to be very active when they're out of balance. They're a little bit kind of flighty, active. Very typical vata kind of person would be Audrey Hepburn, Fred Astaire or the kind of, you know, ballet dancer sort of body very graceful and in balance. Vata it's very youthful, very creative. Lights up a room but out of balance. And body can get out of balance very easily because it's air and ether.

They tend to have anxiety. They tend to get very, very cold. They tend to get, squeaky kind of creaky joints, arthritic conditions, poor digestion, constipation. Then we have pitta, and pitta is the energy of fire and really the energy of energy. So the great thing about pitta is that these are the people who are building the skyscrapers and the civilizations. This is the person who gets out there to really get things done. But out of balance, too much fire. The pitta person can be overly aggressive.

They can be prone to rage, they can have ulcers and, heartburn and skin eruptions, all these very fiery kinds of conditions. And Kapha is this very sweet, lovely, lovely dosha kapha people tend to be a little bit rounder. So I said that the vata was your Audrey Hepburn, and, pitta is more your muscular, you know, a bodybuilder if they want to be. But, you know, easy to get in shape, kind of sized, muscular, build, coarser. It's a little bit rounder, a little bit harder to build some muscle, a little bit harder to lose weight.

And yet, because coffee is a slow moving dosha, kapha people almost never get sick respiratory issues. And maybe if they're not active enough, if they don't quite have their diet on target, they can have some of the complications of overweight type two diabetes. But generally speaking, they're just very solid and kapha people are also really generous. If you've got a friend that you know, you could knock on their door at two in the morning if you were having a crisis, they wouldn't even be mad at you.

They'd probably, you know, make you soup. That's a cough, a person. Now, the cool thing to know about growing older with all this is you've got your body type, and it is what it is and it's perfect. That's the other cool thing is, so much of my life I was told, you need to be thinner, you need to be fitter, you need to have these kinds of measurements, and you really should have been taller and you really should have been blond. In Iron Veda, you are perfect. You're absolutely perfect. You just have to keep your balance of these three doses the way they were at conception when you got them.

And otherwise, if something is getting out of balance, it's going to cause you to be prone to some kind of disease. So Vata, that very first one I talked about is the energy of later life. So round about 55 and certainly by 60. Most people start noticing certain signs of vata aggravation, even if you're not a Varta person. So that can be maybe you had a cast iron stomach and all of a sudden it's not as happy with everything you're trying to put in there. You start seeing maybe bones and veins in your hands.

You notice, some loss of muscle if you're not really working to keep that going. These are all kind of vata characteristics. And the great secret of Iron Veda is if you take care of that vata stuff, you do a lot towards slowing down the aging process and maintaining good health throughout your life. Excellent. Wow. You know, a lot of people think, why are you Veda? Perhaps. And we think about supplements ashwagandha as something from, you know, the Indian culture a lot of people use for stress management.

Anything in your world that you grab on to, that, you know, black gourmands needs one of the most studied foods, that lowers cholesterol and Nigella sativa. But anything in there on that. Well, I certainly I, you know, I'm just crazy about spices. It's almost my hobby. So in our Veda, there are two kinds of herbs and spices. There are the ones that can have culinary purposes and are also healing. And then those that are just used medicinally. So some of the ones that I use on a regular basis, amla, which is really more of a food I it's the Indian gooseberry, highest antioxidant food on the planet.

And I put that every morning in an Indian chocolate shake. There's a wonderful book called the Ayer Vedic Vegan Kitchen, by Tanya Lutz. GR and this, various variations of her Indian chocolate shake I've made over the years. And it's great because you get to put the spices in and it works. So you know that, cinnamon, coriander or, nutmeg, allspice, clove, all of those. Then I often for maybe 2 or 3 weeks at a time, and then I'll lay off for a couple of months and then I'll take it again is terrific.

And those are three herbs that are very good for Vata,

Ayurvedic herbs, vegan choices, and book details 27:00

very good for balancing, but, very good for keeping, you know, the bowel movements and that regular without being a laxative. So that's a nice one. And then there's another one that I was not able to indulge in for a very long time, because they didn't have a vegan variety. This was always just in a paste with ghee, which I don't eat because that's butter. And now you can get this thing. It's called Chia one price, named for a great sage who evidently, went into extreme longevity because, someone prescribed this for him.

And it's a mixture of about 80 different herbs and, food, concentrated foods. And, you can now get that in a powdered form if you want to get it vegan, as I do. And that's considered, reciente, which is almost a magical potion. And to somebody like me who is not a scientist fascinated by science, but also fascinated by religion, spiritual and mysticism. So I think that if there is a youth potion and it doesn't interfere with any prescribed medications, you know, I love the idea of a youth potion.

And so that's a one for us. All right. Well, that is, incredible information. In fact, I'm familiar with that compound, but I know it also only in ghee. So I will be looking for a powder, you say? Yes, I'll send you the the links for the vegan versions. There are a couple. There's actually one that is the jam. I try and fresh without ghee. Right. UK the the powder you can get from Brooklyn. Oh really? And things lead to Brooklyn. And, in your world, I don't want to put you on the spot. Do you consider honey in the world of a vegan or honey, you avoid?

I generally avoid it. When I came into vegan ism, the word from the Vegan Society UK, which is supposedly the ultimate authority. Was that honey was to be left to individual conscience. And I think they changed that. Now I think they're just saying, no, honey, he's not vegan and that's the way it is. But you know, I still like the individual conscience thing because we have this problem with the bees and the colony collapse disorder. There's some beautiful documentaries, like The Disappearance of the bees and Queen of the sun that talk about the plight of the bees.

And there are people who become fascinated by bees. They're almost like human angels for bees, and many of them just have bees and try to help them. And perhaps they use the honey. Perhaps they don't. Some of them sell it, many of them don't. But I'm just not going to say that for all time. Honey is necessarily bad. I don't I don't use it. I'm a professional vegan and I just don't. But I certainly know that I have to does. Although they do say don't eat it, don't put it in your tea. Because, heated honey according to Ayurveda, is toxic.

But, you know, it's an interesting thing. I know Veda likes honey, and they really like ghee. They really like clarified butter, both medicinally and, nutritionally. And obviously I see it very differently. Like, you know, I from the ethical point of view about the cows, certainly the saturated fat in butter, it's just not going to be something that I include in my diet. But I love being able to, as they say in the 12 step programs, take what you like and leave the rest. I can get so much benefit from Ayer Veda and I don't have ghee.

It doesn't feel like I'm losing anything. Well, thank you. I ask about honey specifically because a lot of Java and brush has honey in it. And yes, that is, we can divide ourselves and, you know, the the oils, the avocados and nuts and seeds, honey topics. I'd rather we stay united and. Exactly. Kind to each other, so. Amen. This has been fascinating. And book number, I think you said 14. Right. 14. Yeah. You know, for a person who's written books and is starting to work and will be my seventh, you know, I appreciate and give you a shout out for the hard work it takes.

You had a, you have an incredibly well known Yogi, Shannon, Sharon Gannon, who wrote the foreword in that alone, gives a seal of approval to the book. Although your decades and decades at work, all that is needed to know, it's, it's going to be a great read for the audience. So tell everybody if they wanted to learn more about the amazing Victoria moran, where would they go? Well, you're so kind to ask. So, Victoria moran, author, is, my Instagram and, LinkedIn and Facebook, and a couple of websites.

Victoria moran.com. That's my author website and I really love that one because it has like family pictures and pictures with friends in the movement and that. So it's nice and personal. I think you'd get a kick out of it. And if you are interested in Main Street being an academy, in training as a certified vegan lifestyle coach and educator, that website is Main Street vegan.com, and I do the Main Street Vegan podcast and you can find that wherever you get your podcasts. You got a lot of energy in this, third act.

So I love you and I, I will say I have followed your daughter at on Instagram. One daughter at a dare stuns. Yeah at a dare ad air stunts. Was vegan and vegans don't kick but go look at what, this little five foot stunt performer does. And, plant based foods quite, quite impressive like her mother. So thank you for your time and sharing all your knowledge. And I think lots of people are going to enjoy learning more about how to make their third act a healthy and, joyful one through your latest addition to the books.

Thanks so much. Thank you so much, Doctor Khan. Thanks for having me. You bet.